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The best part of this rather traditionally long-winded article (not a jab, just the truth) from The Atlantic was the observation that the availability of energy

The best part of this rather traditionally long-winded article (not a jab, just the truth) from The Atlantic was the observation that the availability of energy to the individual almost exactly correlates with economic growth. It makes me wonder if we are not completely misunderstanding the role of energy, making it into some kind of threat or something to fear instead of a huge enabler of human progress. Perhaps if we want flying cars and jet packs, if we want burgeoning economies with more employment and GDP, we should be doing anything physically possible to reduce the cost and increase the availability of energy to the average person. You're free to solve that in any way you want -- nuclear makes the most sense to me -- but if we have our heads on backwards, then we have a lot of well-meaning people who are actively trying to destroy our future by preaching conservation. Without knowing it. Energy very well may be the 20th century's internet. The more everybody has it, the better off we all are.

davi 14y ago
the availability of energy to the individual almost exactly correlates with economic growth A corollary might be that the more energy available per capita, the greater the environmental footprint of per capita. E.g. the McMansions of the megasprawl: rolling hills of former farmland are graded and leveled off, enormous balloon-like, energy inefficient stick frame houses pop up, and twice a day their inhabitants wait in lines of SUVs on the clogged roads between the exurbs and the suburban office parks. The entire enterprise is completely dependent on vast quantities of energy being available to participants in the system. People are comfortable in their SUVs and McMansions, and aspire to this lifestyle. But the environmental footprint per capita is enormous. Without some penalty for the external costs (which are long latency and hard to measure), there is nothing to slow the spread of this pattern of economic development. In this light, when you say: Energy very well may be the 20th century's internet. The more everybody has it, the better off we all are. I suspect it is more like an upside-down U-shaped curve. People are indeed better off when we have sufficient energy per capita, but when we have a massive superabundance of energy, we negatively affect our environment to the point that real consequences start to kick in. Unfortunately, it is hard to know where we are on that upside-down U, and it is hard (impossible?) to distinguish overwrought hand-wringing about impending environmental doom from the real thing, until the real thing has started to have obvious, severe, and sustained effects.

davi 14y ago

the availability of energy to the individual almost exactly correlates with economic growth A corollary might be that the more energy available per capita, the greater the environmental footprint of per capita. E.g. the McMansions of the megasprawl: rolling hills of former farmland are graded and leveled off, enormous balloon-like, energy inefficient stick frame houses pop up, and twice a day their inhabitants wait in lines of SUVs on the clogged roads between the exurbs and the suburban office parks. The entire enterprise is completely dependent on vast quantities of energy being available to participants in the system. People are comfortable in their SUVs and McMansions, and aspire to this lifestyle. But the environmental footprint per capita is enormous. Without some penalty for the external costs (which are long latency and hard to measure), there is nothing to slow the spread of this pattern of economic development. In this light, when you say: Energy very well may be the 20th century's internet. The more everybody has it, the better off we all are. I suspect it is more like an upside-down U-shaped curve. People are indeed better off when we have sufficient energy per capita, but when we have a massive superabundance of energy, we negatively affect our environment to the point that real consequences start to kick in. Unfortunately, it is hard to know where we are on that upside-down U, and it is hard (impossible?) to distinguish overwrought hand-wringing about impending environmental doom from the real thing, until the real thing has started to have obvious, severe, and sustained effects.